1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to systems and methods for identifying products referenced in user generated content such as comments and social media postings.
2. Background of the Invention
Many forums exist for users to post content. For example, there are many social media sites that allow users to post their experiences. Many manufacturers and merchants also provide interfaces for consumers to rate or review products. Consumer protection groups and sites dedicated to a particular class of products (e.g. automobiles) also enable consumers to post reviews of products.
In many situations it can be difficult to determine the product that is discussed in a post. For example, a product may be referenced with a colloquial term that is not known to a search engine or other analytic software. In addition, in many situations the name of a product may be known from context such that a posting itself does not indicate the product being discussed. For example, in postings that form a conversation an initial posting may reference the product but subsequent postings do not. In another example, a user may make a post referencing purchase or ownership of a product on a social media site. Subsequent posts may contain valuable content describing the user's opinions of a product but omit an explicit reference to the product.
The methods and systems described herein provide a novel approach to extracting product entities from user-generated content.